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~Shinybinary

Nik Ainley
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Tutorials

:iconshinybinary:

1,000,000



I've produced a few tutorials now and get asked about where they can be found quite often so I thought I would produce a full list. Not all of these are available for free online but back issues of the magazines they appear in are generally still available.



Fresh science word

Photoshop type tutorial produced for Computer Arts issue 152.
Available online here.

 


Hive

Abstract tutorial produced for Advanced Photoshop issue 43.

 


Mystic

Complete picture walkthrough produced for PSDTUTS.
Available online here.

 


Fluid

Photo blending tutorial produced for Digital Arts.
Available online here.

 


Robot rock

Abstract Poser and Photoshop tutorial produced for Advanced Photoshop issue 42.

 


Fresh

3D type tutorial produced for Digital Arts.
Available online here.

 


shiny shiny

Geometric 3D Photoshop tutorial produced for Advanced Photoshop issue 48.

 



Old tutorials


These are all from a few years ago when I still had enough spare time to knock out the odd tutorial now and then for no reason other than self amusement.
They are all still available on my website but require a bit of digging to find. They are mostly written for version CS or earlier and may be a little dated, hopefully there's still some good stuff in there though.



Layer styles
Dashed stroke
Soft blend
Optimising Photoshop
Clear plastic
Burnt paper
Perfect Extractions
Colouring
Quick photo touchup
Layer masks
The edge
Corroded metal

That's all of them I think, hope you find them useful.


46 Comments
Tutorials September 12, 2008 46 Comments 2 Favourites

Mega

:iconshinybinary:

1,000,000


This month shinybinary.com received its millionth visitor! I think a decent number of those would have gone there straight from here, so I just wanted to give a huge thank you to those that are among that number :]

It's been about 3 and a half years since I launched the site now. In the whole of 2004 when it started, the site managed the grand total of 18,000 or so visits. Last year it got 400,000 and has racked up abother 560,000 so far this year, using about 2.1 Terabytes of bandwidth in the process... and to think I only pay £5 a month hosting ;) Anyway cheers again and here's to the next mil.

Some far more interesting news is that Depthcore has released its 32nd pack (or whatever we're calling them now), Temple. To say it's the best so far doesn't do justice to some of the stunning work it contains. Jerico's piece in particular is guaranteed to make your eyes pop straight through your monitor. I'm disappointed I have had to much work to take part but hopefully will get the chance again in the near future. Go check it out, seriously. www.depthcore.com
56 Comments
Mega November 27, 2007 56 Comments No Favourites

60 unite for children

:iconshinybinary:

60 Unite for children

This month finally sees the release of '60 unite for Children', a book bringing together work by 60 artists and illustrators for UNICEF. I'm very proud to have been included in this and urge everyone to buy a copy, all profits go directly to UNICEF.

Went away for a weekend and came back to a suspiciously large 1,100 or so new messages. Turns out Type had been given a DD about 18 months after it was released, how weird. I never get why it's the most popular to be honest.
16 Comments
60 unite for children October 16, 2007 16 Comments No Favourites

London thing

:iconshinybinary:




Looks like a laugh, I'll be going down and hope anyone who lives nearby can make it too :)



Oh and just upgraded too so I can have a second pc for emergencies. New one seems pretty nifty at CS3.








Oh and another thing, do you ever get lost in your own computer? A while ago Windows decided to randomly swap my drive letters around and I couldn't find a file I was looking for for ages... I think I need that google desktop search thing or something.




37 Comments
London thing August 19, 2007 37 Comments No Favourites

7.60

:iconshinybinary:

*UPDATE*

Tutorial now online here: [link] have put a cut down version online. Seems like the images are broken at the moment, hope they fix that at some point soon. Silly CMS systems *tsk*




fresh



One of those rather boring self promotional journals this time around. The image above is actually something I did for a tutorial in this month's issue of Digital Arts magazine. Finally giving away those shiny 3D text secrets ;) The use of the word 'fresh' was meant to be a bit ironic as I am asked to do this style of lettering so often now it has become anything but fresh. Not to mention the mass of 'heavily inspired' pictures I have seen by others. Anyhow, it helps pay the bills :}



stats



The above stats are a 6 monthly report of how Shinybinary.com is doing. There's been some vague growth this year but not much really. It's not surprising considering the lack of updates though, I really need to redesign that sucker at some point...



Buy high quality prints




I have also started selling high quality prints with Clickforart.com, a new startup where a select group of artists can sell prints of a quality not normally offered by art sites. It's not really meant to compete with my DA prints as these are generally high quality wood or canvas sizes up to enormous sizes, and priced accordingly. And yes I realise the irony of my last journal and their website, but I'm assured it's only a temporary design :}

and that's yer lot.


P.S. Job done with the rippers
42 Comments
7.60 July 20, 2007 42 Comments No Favourites

7.5

:iconshinybinary:


fresh



One of those rather boring self promotional journals this time around. The image above is actually something I did for a tutorial in this month's issue of Digital Arts magazine. Finally giving away those shiny 3D text secrets ;) The use of the word 'fresh' was meant to be a bit ironic as I am asked to do this style of lettering so often now it has become anything but fresh. Not to mention the mass of 'heavily inspired' pictures I have seen by others. Anyhow, it helps pay the bills :}



stats



The above stats are a 6 monthly report of how Shinybinary.com is doing. There's been some vague growth this year but not much really. It's not surprising considering the lack of updates though, I really need to redesign that sucker at some point...



Buy high quality prints




I have also started selling high quality prints with Clickforart.com, a new startup where a select group of artists can sell prints of a quality not normally offered by art sites. It's not really meant to compete with my DA prints as these are generally high quality wood or canvas sizes up to enormous sizes, and priced accordingly. And yes I realise the irony of my last journal and their website, but I'm assured it's only a temporary design :}

and that's yer lot.
31 Comments
7.5 June 27, 2007 31 Comments No Favourites

Stop it

:iconshinybinary:


<img src="[link]" alt="stop it" width="414" height=""339>



Bit of a ranty update today, and it regards the image above. You will probably recognise the shapes above as this style has become massively popular recently. The stock used is readily available and took less than 2 minutes of googling to find. Another 10 minutes was spent overlaying it on some text and adding appropriate masking and the image was done.

Now I have no problem with curly ornaments or vector stock, I love them and they look great. In this case however the style of curls is very particular, and pretty much an exact copy of Si Scott's excellent work. As with all popular styles though people want to imitate it. With the introduction of this stock (I've seen several versions by the way, none by Si) I am seeing loads of cheap Si Scott ripoffs appearing all over the place. I've seen it on covers of magazines, commercial adverts and personal artwork. Nearly every time it's the same couple of shapes being used again and again, indicating that they've all come from the same stock.

I hope this doesn't affect you, but I am pleading with designers out there to stop using this stock and stop cheapening the style. The work I'm seeing is never more than a poor imitation of the original. In other cases imitating good designers can help learning, but when a piece of stock is simply being pasted into a picture, I'm not anything is being gained. Right, rant over.

On a different note, here's a site to inspire/depress you in equal measures. It certainly made my jaw drop:

[link]

56 Comments
Stop it May 16, 2007 56 Comments No Favourites

Shiny's Photoshop tips

:iconshinybinary:

So I'm bored again, waiting for some files to turn up. So I thought I would just post a bunch of Photoshop tips and shortcuts off the top of my head, as there are hundreds of ways to improve your productivity in PS of which these are a good selection. So in no particular order, here are a random bunch of these tips (WRITTEN FOR CS2, SOME MIGHT NOT WORK IN OTHER VERSIONS)

Holding down ALT while using the move key will create a copy of the layer which you then move.

Holding down ALT + SHIFT on a thumbnail while opening a .psd from within Photoshop will open a flattened version of the file, useful for big files when you only want the flat version.

Holding down ALT while cicking on a thumbnail of a layer mask will show you the mask in the main view window.

Holding down CTRL before using the move tool and then clicking on an object will automatically select the layer that that object is in. However Photoshop can get confused if a lot of blending modes/opacities are being used and it might not be able to work out the layer you actually want.

Holding down CTRL + SHIFT before using the move tool and clicking on multiple layers will select all of the layers that you click on.

Clicking inbetween letters while using the Type tool, then holding down ALT and using the left and right cursor keys allow you to adjust the kerning between letters precisely.

You can move layer masks from one layer to another just by clicking and dragging their thumbnails between layers. Holding down ALT while doing it will copy the mask rather than move it.

To complete a transformation, just double click inside the transform box area, or press enter if the box is too small. Pressing escape will get you out of transformation mode and revert you to the original version.

Holding down ALT and clicking on the eye next to a layers thumbnail will turn off the visibility of all other layers. Clicking it again returns it to the previous state.

Holding down SHIFT while using the move tool locks the movement to the x or y axis.

Holding down ALT while using the polygon lasso tool then clicking and moving the mouse switches to normal lasso until you release the mouse button.

Change layer opacity quickly by using the number keys. Pressing 5 will set it to 50%, 8 to 80% etc. Pressing 2 numbers quickly allows you to do inbetweens, eg pressing 4 and then 5 quickly sets it to 45%.

Double clicking within Photoshop, but outside of a canvas window opens the open dialogue.

Holding down ALT while using the brush tool temporarily selects the eye dropper tool.

Use multiple layer masks on one layer by putting it into an empty layer group and adding a mask to that. You can then stack up groups inside eachother and get even more.

Holding down ALT while adding a layer mask automatically makes it the opposite of whatever you have selected.

CTRL + SHIFT + F is the fade command, learn it, use it. One of the most important tools in PS.

phew enough for now I think, if you want to add your own I don't mind, but try and not make them completely obvious ones like ctrl + d being deselect or something, this ain't a noobie forum!
47 Comments
Shiny's Photoshop tips January 18, 2007 47 Comments No Favourites

07

:iconshinybinary:

Here's the blurb I wrote for my website coz I'm lazy:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2006 was a year of growth here. From 50,000 visitors in 2005 to 420,000 last year. A terrabyte of bandwidth used and just over 10,000 emails received. So I have to say a big thanks to everyone who came here and helped make it such a good year!

Anyway enough of that ancient history, it's 2007 and I want this to be a year of change. Digital art moves at such a pace that what looked cool last year is already starting to look stale. I'm going to try and inject a big dose of innovation to keep things fresh around here, even if it means pulling this whole place apart and starting again.

In the meantime, I am excessively busy with various exciting projects coming up, most of which I can't give more details on just yet. However I am pleased to announce I will be taking part in inkthis 2 which looks to be a very exciting project. Oh and some new art is on it's way and all the usual stuff.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More specifically for DA, I must been asked 100 times now about the 3D lettering I do which I find astonishing seeing as how shoddy they are. Once and for all, rather than write a tutorial which I don't have time to or want to as I'm bored of them, this is how they are made.

I get the basic letters out of Xara 3D, they are then imported into PS where they are positioned, relit, recoloured and restyled using a varierty of different methods. I find them quite tedious to produce actually, the most boring bit of the picture.

Anyway on a lighter note, happy new year! Unfortunately that means it's January and everything is grey and boring :-( Bah

15 Comments
07 January 4, 2007 15 Comments No Favourites

Tits

:iconshinybinary:

Oops I'm writing a proper update type thing in the next few days but for now I'm going to bother you all by telling you I've just joined MySpace (ugh).

www.myspace.com/shinybinary

So add me, don't add me, I don't care really! *sniff*. I resisted for as long as I could, I'm sorry :(
22 Comments
Tits December 4, 2006 22 Comments No Favourites

Something for everyone

:iconshinybinary:

*schwing* Interview at the LCS, go read some of this nonsense.




Busy times here at Shiny HQ, 120k visitors in October, almost 250 gigs bandwidth. Not quite sure what's going on, but I'm not complaining...




wowsers



More importantly, after a few months of down time and furious work in the background, Depthcore version 6 is finally here. With a new art pack, forums, member features, news portal and much much more it's pretty amazing. Even I'm gobsmacked and I knew most of what was coming! Big props to Justin and Brian for all their work, I think it's more than worth it. Hopefully I'll be submitting stuff there again in the future.

Go see it!



DC rox



I'll be popping up in a few mags this month as well. Checkout a profile and interview with me in Computer Arts Projects, as well as a double page illustration in Digit and a cover pic for Computer Music Specials mag. For readers in China, there will be an interview and front cover for CG Times magazine, and for those in Russia another interview in Khoolifan mag. Hopefully a few other bits and bobs will be happening as well, but at the moment I really want to get back to producing a few personal pics. I've been over enthusiastic in accepting commissions and although they're good for me, I have a few ideas floating around I want to have a go at making but don't have the time right now... on the other hand I've just got a lovely new black ipod nano with some of the cash from mags, and all I can say is phhhhwooooar. Kudos to Apple, they know how to design stuff :}
32 Comments
Something for everyone November 13, 2006 32 Comments No Favourites

Shiny finery and more

:iconshinybinary:

What? I've updated something? Shocking! Hello, hope you're all doing fine. Just a small update to say that you can now buy 2 different shinybinary t-shirts at the Imaginary Foundation:

T-shirts at the Imaginary Foundation

Shinybinary t-shirts
P.S. Many thanks to Jess for modelling :)

You can also see a new improved version of Athena on the cover of this month's Digit magazine, which is pretty cool as it's a mag I actually read

Woop

I have a few projects on my mind now that I want to start working on soon, and expect a few more magazine things in the near future.

23 Comments
Shiny finery and more September 28, 2006 23 Comments No Favourites

Shinybinary version 2 launched!

:iconshinybinary:

buy em


After many months of hard designing, coding, writing and slacking off playing pointless Flash games, version 2 is finally here. It's a fairly radical change in style from version 1, and I know some people will miss the nature orientated look that has come to be associated with this site. However change is nearly always a good thing, and I am happy with the direction I have taken things in.



I hope you enjoy it, and look forward to any feedback you might want to send me. *Phew* I think I've earned a bit of a lie down.



Read more detail here.



Or more importantly, go and see it!



32 Comments
  • Mood:
Shinybinary version 2 launched! August 1, 2006 32 Comments No Favourites

Summer blockbuster

:iconshinybinary:

www.shinybinary.com

ooooooooh
31 Comments
  • Mood:
Summer blockbuster July 20, 2006 31 Comments No Favourites

Mid-summer magness

:iconshinybinary:

buy em


So yes, in the last month or so more has been going on for me offline than on. Firstly the July issue of Computer Arts Projects contains 2 illustrations by me. 'Type tips' is a double page spread fronting up an article on expert typography tips. 'Type' is give a full A4 page fronting up a tutorial on making your own fonts, and also appears on the CD and CD case that come with the mag. There's a little bit of blurb about me at the front but nothing particularly interesting (probably my fault for being too boring!)



Secondly I have been featured in the latest issue of a Chinese design mag called idea design. I am given a full 10 pages with a load of my pictures and a small interview. You can see what it looks like by clicking the pic below:



clicky



The photos were actually taken by ~loveisickprojekt who is also featured in the issue as I have been too lazy to scan it in myself, so many thanks to him! I actually recommend buying this if you live out east as there is some very cool stuff in it. To be honest most of my stuff looks pants in comparison. I won't tell you what was in the interview as it wasn't very interesting and I can't actually remember.



Now back to spending a bit of time in the sun and watching as much football as is humanly possible ;}


36 Comments
  • Mood:
Mid-summer magness June 25, 2006 36 Comments No Favourites

Something wicked this way comes...

:iconshinybinary:

icu



I've been working on a whole bunch of things since I last posted here, a lot of it still isn't anywhere near ready to be shown unfortunately. Instead you'll have to go take a look at the new Depthcore pack 'Freestyle 2'. I haven't really been very involved this time for a number of reasons but the DC members, old and new, have really pulled together some sweet artwork for this pack.


To be honest I feel like I live in my own little backwater of DA anyway which people only really stumble upon by accident, so whether I release new stuff regularly or not, it doesn't get noticed. Visit my site though, www.shinybinary.com, and if anyone wants to exchange links I think it's about time I updated mine. Half of the sites I'm linking to don't even seem to exist any more for fucks sake!



Oh and it's official, you guys rock :}


22 Comments
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Something wicked this way comes... May 13, 2006 22 Comments No Favourites

Calibre

:iconshinybinary:


It's that time again, Depthcore pack launch! Pack 24, Calibre, is intended to be small and sweet and is also bursting with fresh talent from err lots of new members, can't even remember how many now. Anyway make you sure take a good look because I reckon it's one of the best yet.



whatever



In other unrelated news, I would like to thank Computer Arts again for featuring me, it's provided a lot of nice feedback. You can now read it on their website here if you like.



Also good news is that by the 27th February this year my website received more visitors in 2006 than it did for the entire of 2005! That's about 50,000 or so if you're wondering. Gives me some hope for the future...



15 Comments
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Calibre March 12, 2006 15 Comments No Favourites

Noone ever listens to me anyway

:iconshinybinary:

I thought I would drop by and say hi since I have now posted a huge link to this page on my website. I feel I should at least update one of the two, and this one is easier thanks to DA's lovely web interface.

Smooooth


Anyway, I'm sure most people have already noticed but there is a new Depthcore pack out and it's pretty damn sexy. This time I haven't submitted for a couple of reasons. Firstly the work I was doing at the time wasn't really suitable for the theme and so I decided to just stick them up here rather than wait around for a pack they did fit into. Secondly I have been incredibly busy/lazy, tick whichever you believe, and have been neglecting my pc. Having said that I have one shiny new picture ready, I just have to decide where and when I will release it


In other news, I have been featured in issue 119 of  Computer Arts magazine as one of the 'hottest up and coming designers of 2006' or something like that. Anyway here's a little scan, but you'll have to buy it if you want to read the whole thing you cheapskates!




Hell yeah!



Now back to my fortress of solitude... [link]
30 Comments
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Noone ever listens to me anyway January 23, 2006 30 Comments No Favourites

Do something disgusting today!

:iconshinybinary:

I had this urge to crack someones head open a while ago and since haven't really had the will to finish it off. So I thought I would chuck it over to you guys and see if anyone can make something really disgusting come out of him!

bleurgh


Inside this zip file you'll find a hi-res psd with a couple of layers, I've cut out some of the details in the preview pic to keep the file size down but all the important stuff is there. See this as a stock resource, and if anyone produces something even more disgusting than I was going to do, they win errr my respect! :}



ZIP: [link]

In other news I've got a lot of stuff on the go as usual and should have something interesting to show in the new year. Ooh and I've just been featured in this week's prints yay: [link]


After a much needed reinstall and OS upgrade I will be returning in the new year with an even more beefed up PC. As well as some extra HD space I've doubled my RAM for those extra huge PSDs :}


So far it seems rather nippy... I'm loving 64 bit already.




oh yes
41 Comments
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Do something disgusting today! December 30, 2005 41 Comments No Favourites

Deluxelicious

:iconshinybinary:

pimpin



Ahhh the much promised new Depthcore pack has arrived (or half of it at least anyway). Deluxe part 1 is stuffed full of great work, and hints at things to come in Deluxe part 2 as well. Make sure you check it out.



In other news, I'm still pretty busy in general with other work, but am finding more time to produce little pictures now and then as you may or may not have noticed. I already have a couple more pictures on the go, and ideas for about 3 more. Lack of net connection at home is making things a bit tough though as I do use stock photography a fair bit. Anyway, until next time, take care and keep watching :}




Update: Wow, it's really nice to log in and find you have about 500 messages from another DD. Thanks to all the people adding my stuff to their favs and commenting, sorry I don't have time to reply to everyone... this feature on its own has been enough to push my watchers to over 1000. So thanks to all those watching, I'll try and get something new out soon.


6 Comments
  • Mood:
Deluxelicious November 7, 2005 6 Comments No Favourites

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